@bluestilton The issue here is prior to the loan agreement the rate was changed and no one spotted it. The bank or broker changed this, probably based on underwriting criteria, and was not picked up on your side - either by you or your solicitor (or the broker - who I believe works for you since they are ultimately being paid by you via commission)
Applying for a tracker does not mean you were going to get one (sadly)

They are likely to blame the broker, or say you did not qualify for a tracker due to underwriting concerns and blame the broker for not telling you. Either way, I cannot see the bank accepting responsibility here.

Now, if you queried and you were told a discount variable was a tracker then that is a different matter of course.

Frequent Poster

Every time the tracker rate increased we got a letter advising us of the new monthly direct debit change, as we should have. On the bottom of each of these letters was encouragement from KBC to talk to them about their attractive fixed rate options. They didn’t say that after the fixed rate that you wouldn’t be getting your tracker back, ever.

To be fair they would not have known at that point that trackers would be completely taken off the market. I am sure you would have been able to sign up for a tracker, if one had existed on the date of expiry of the fixed rate.
I don't believe any customer or any bank foresaw what was about to happen in the Irish banking and property sectors. If they did, they would not have continued to lend/borrow on that basis.
I remember the time you are talking about very well as I was not long back in Ireland at the time. I remember lots of media commentators advising people to fix at all costs. Some of these are very quiet now !!

Not disagreeing here, but I think your case here is weak. Your default rate is variable. You moved to a tracker and then to a fixed rate. Once the fixed rate expired you could have moved to any available rate the bank had, but sadly times changed in the intervening time and trackers were no longer available, and have not been available since. I don't think anything was hidden from you here - I think you were just a victim of the withdrawal of trackers from the market => no difference to myself when I bought in 2011 - my options where variable or fixed - no trackers, no LTV variables etc.

If KBC brought in an ECB+3% tracker tomorrow morning for LTV<60%, I wonder how many people would avail of it?

Registered User

I emailed the tracker team on 17th and 19th Feb with queries regarding my account. There's been a partial rate rectification for the mortgage but no letter or communication since .I rang today to follow up on the emails but was told I won't receive a response until at least next week which will be a month from when they were sent. So much for a response within 3-5 working days

Founder

Frequent Poster

Finally my letter came today (delayed as name and part of address was covered)- finally its in black and white. 9 years 4 months after my fixed rate was up.
Now I'm off to buy a picture frame and hang it on the wall as a 100k reminder to check every wrd of small print in any major contract I sign.

Registered User

Thanks for your opinion. It should have reverted back to Tracker after fixed rate. The only reason they won’t is that we were on SVR rate at one stage ? We were told that we could go back to Tracker after fixed rate before we fixed.

Frequent Poster

Registered User

Hi i got letter from kbc to advise of rate change and the new rate is margin 1.25% and interest rate 1.25%. Does anyone know if this is the correct rate?. As main mortgage tracker impacted reduced by only 50.00 a month. We also have a top up taken in feb 2007 with they have deemed not impacted.

Frequent Poster

Hi i got letter from kbc to advise of rate change and the new rate is margin 1.25% and interest rate 1.25%. Does anyone know if this is the correct rate?. As main mortgage tracker impacted reduced by only 50.00 a month. We also have a top up taken in feb 2007 with they have deemed not impacted.

Registered User

Thank you for that. The balance o/s on our mortgage is lower now i assume thats the correction. However over the years taken out original mortgage in 2003 we have overpaid what we could. Do you think i have case to insist that that is paid off non trackerportion of loan from 2007.
Kbc have advised we have 11 years left on mortgage. Would the interest be that low now. Original mortgage was for 189000 in 2003 and top up 100000 in 2007.

Frequent Poster

Thank you for that. The balance o/s on our mortgage is lower now i assume thats the correction. However over the years taken out original mortgage in 2003 we have overpaid what we could. Do you think i have case to insist that that is paid off non tracter portion of loan from 2007.
Kbc have advised we have 11 years left on mortgage. Would the interest be that low now. Original mortgage was for 189000 in 2003 and top up 100000 in 2007.

Registered User

Thank you for that. The balance o/s on our mortgage is lower now i assume thats the correction. However over the years taken out original mortgage in 2003 we have overpaid what we could. Do you think i have case to insist that that is paid off non tracter portion of loan from 2007.
Kbc have advised we have 11 years left on mortgage. Would the interest be that low now. Original mortgage was for 189000 in 2003 and top up 100000 in 2007.

Hi Maureen
I'm in a similar position. Our mortgage was split into part tracker part fixed in 2006 but since 2008 it has been all on the same rate as a whole amount. However we made a large capital payment in 2015 but unknown to us KBC took the amount off the portion of the loan now being returned to tracker. Therefore the benefit to me is minimal. I emailed the tracker team on Feb 17th, 20th and 21st and haven't got a response yet. I've asked if I can either take the capital payment off the fixed portion instead or withdraw it altogether. I also phoned twice last week only to be told my email won't be answered until at least the end of next week despite getting an automated response saying I'd get a reply within 3-5 working days.

Frequent Poster

From memory if you are in advance payments on your loan you can request that cash back.
You can then pay it off your topup loan.
Or you could stop making payments to the tracker until it’s inline with your contract and hammer money into top up loan.

My understanding from KBC is anyone who took out a mortgage before September 2013 has this redraw feature. I have been granted a partial one for money over-paid to a certain date, as my mortgage was after this date. There is no reason you should not be able to redraw the funds overpaid.

I've asked if I can either take the capital payment off the fixed portion instead or withdraw it altogether. I also phoned twice last week only to be told my email won't be answered until at least the end of next week despite getting an automated response saying I'd get a reply within 3-5 working days.

I think most banks departments are flooded with queries at the moment. They are probably answering them the best the can, but I can imagine its not the easiest job at the moment for the staff working there. I appreciate your frustration, but an extra week won't make a material difference, and you can always request it to be back-dated based on the timeliness of their responses.

I am not sure I would bother email the tracker team. If you accept you are not getting the tracker on the top-up, I would simply raise a formal complaint into KBC to address it via the standard process. You just need to decide what you want to do.
Option 1 - redraw the overpayment and pay off non-tracker portion. You can do this without raising a complain and simply write to them asking for the redraw and then overpaying with instruction to apply to non-tracker element. This means you will benefit for the rate difference going forward but not historically.
Option 2 - raise the complaint to have the overpayment applied to the non-tracker element retrospectively, on the basis that as the mortgage was all on the same rate and treated as a single mortgage, there was no instruction to be applied at the time. The instruction would have been supplied in the event of a split mortgage on different rates. However since KBC made the error, they should correct the error. The advantage of this approach is if they agree it will be applied retrospectively; the downside is it is likely to be a much bigger fight.

You should make the decision based on when you made the overpayment and how much it was - in simple terms how much would you save by having it applied retrospectively? The other alternative is go with Option 1 and appeal the compensation based on the historic interest overpaid. It is likely this would be a cleaner and quicker alternative.

If you overpaid by say 10k in total, and you go from a LTV rate of say 3.55% to tracker of 1.25% - the difference is 2.3% - so 230 euro a year. You just need to work out now much effort is this worth !! Only you know the figures

Frequent Poster

This would be an interesting discussion in its own right - is it treated as similar to a split mortgage? Does it have its own mortgage account? Can you have two different fixed rates & periods on it? I have never done a top-up, but would be interested in how clean the banks are in differentiating between the two.

Registered User

Thank you. Of course i do not mind waiting i deal with the public daily and i am mindful of those who are still impacted.When we took out our top up . It is the same account number but they treated it as a separate loan. Iam pretty sure kbc have always been able to advise me of o/s balance of each. So i take all your helpful suggestion. Our trackers seems to be 1.25 +1.25. So it may not be a huge saving for us. We defin had two interest rates at one stage . 4.50 and 4.25. But at some stage they both became 4.50. We are down to 3.20 now fixed for 4 years trying to get out of that. Kbc never received our original form with no breaking fee. They have sent a new form which may have breaking fee. Have not received yet.